Robert Durst Had Gun When He Was Arrested, Police Say

March 16, 2015

(NEW ORLEANS) — Real estate heir Robert Durst had a Smith and Wesson handgun when he was arrested at a New Orleans hotel on Sunday and charged with the 2001 murder of his friend Susan Berman, authorities said.

Durst was arrested at a Marriott hotel in New Orleans at around 7 p.m. and had a .38 caliber gun with him at the time of his arrest, police confirmed to ABC News.

The 71-year-old appeared before a judge Monday in New Orleans for an extradition hearing, where his lawyers agreed to have him sent back to California.

Durst, who was chained and shackled at waist and feet, wore a orange jumpsuit and smiled for a bit as he looked around the courtroom. He had been kept in a glass holding booth before appearing before a judge.

It is unclear when Durst will be extradited to California on the murder charge.

“Let me just say that we came here to wave jurisdiction and to go back to California and to get it on,” Durst’s lawyer Dick DeGuerin said in front of the courthouse after the hearing was over.

“Bob Durst didn’t kill Susan Berman — he’s ready to end all the rumor and speculation and have a trial but we’re frustrated because the local authorities are considering filing charges on him here and holding him here,” DeGuerin said.

Durst, the son of a wealthy New York real estate family, was the subject of an HBO series detailing the disappearance of his wife Kathleen, the murder of his friend Susan Berman and the death of his neighbor Morris Black.

Durst was acquitted in 2003 of Black’s murder, but was never charged in connection to Kathleen’s disappearance or Berman’s death.

Berman was scheduled to meet with investigators looking into Kathleen’s 1982 disappearance when Berman was found shot in the back of the head in her Los Angeles home, investigators said.

Durst was arrested just before the finale of the HBO series, in which he was heard on a recording saying that he “killed them all.” However, the Los Angeles Police Department says the decision to arrest Durst was not based on the finale.